Re: USCG Searching For Missing Football Players
Closure is very much an issue for the families. As has been discussed before, the USCG typically suspends operations at a point which likelyhood of recovering anyone alive is nil. Other agencies will often continue a search and recovery operation, but such an effort in this case would be likely to be futile, simply because of the amount of area that would have to be covered.
When a person drowns, their lungs, and sometimes their stomachs, fill with water. The body will descend until decomposition causes the formation of gases that bring it back to the surface. This can take anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks, depending on water temperature, body type, food ingested, etc. In cases where water temperature remains extremely cold, the body may never resurface.
In the context of this search, what this means is that the bodies could stay under the surface for quite some time and could be carried a long distance by currents, during that period. Some here may remember a case last year of a mentally disturbed father, who threw his young children off of a bridge in the Mobile, AL area. One of the kids was found days later near the mouth of the Mississippi River, in Louisiana. In that case, just as in the football player tragedy, covering the amount of area necessary to insure body recovery quickly, is a practical impossibility.
All things considered, this is a tough situation for those who knew and loved these young men. It is just human nature to want to lay the bodies to rest, but this may not be in the cards. About the best that can be hoped for, is that someone just happens to find them, as happened with the child that I just mentioned.
